THE SECONDARY LITERACY PROJECT WIKI I have decided to set up our own wikispace for the SLP. There will be lots of resources on this page but for most staff it will be one step at a time. Click on the link above to go to the SLP page
This page will chronicle our journey with the Secondary Literacy Project. It is an example of Teaching as Inquiry because the data that we gather and the ideas that we share will inform the process.
When we decided to enter this project last year it was partly because as a school we were making progress with Literacy but it was with 'hoop jumping literacy' ie the improvement as measured by Level 1 literacy statistics. We have continued with that because those statistics are a very public marker of progress. We need to keep that focus. But let's not fool ourselves. The real marker for literacy is what happens in the classroom on a day to day basis. I call this functional literacy. The tool that we have been using to measure Year 9 and 10 functional literacy was asTTle. However, like many of our neighbouring schools, we were not getting the shifts in pre and post tests, that we felt we should. The data was telling us that we needed to do more or do something differently. In addition the staff survey that we completed last year indicated that we needed to do something more than were doing. There were schools who were getting shifts. We needed a bit of help.
Help has come in the form of the SLP (The Secondary Literacy Project) Jo Williams, Fiona Gibson and John Pipe attended the first national hui in November 2009. This gave us a feel for the project and gave us an opportunity to think more about the way that we would structure the project within the PD framework of MAGS.
The project involves us creating a group called a Focus Group of 12 teachers who would be given increased time and resources to unpack Literacy across their subject areas. They would be led by a Literacy Co-ordinator but there would also be a representative of the Senior Management Team as part of the Literacy Team. In our model we will have John Pipe as the Literacy Leader and Jo Williams as the SMT member. Richard Watkinson will be the English teacher responsible for literacy and Pam Drake and her team will provide support and knowledge with her team. The Focus Group is in creation now.
We invited Aaron Wilson and Irene Andersen to attend our PD Day and launch the project. This was really planting seeds that would grow over the time that we were gathering evidence to inform the structure and process that the we would follow.
Richard Watkinson, John Pipe and Elliot Lavey attended the February National Hui and started to think and dialogue about the nature of the project with the lead faciltators from School Support Services (m In Auckland, TEAM Solutions)
John's comments from the National hui
Day 1 was spent following a tight agenda but with an opportunity to discuss with others at our table. We sat with the Literacy leaders from Green Bay High School
We were required to bring with us copies of:
The New Zealand Curriculum
Effective Literacy Strategies, Years 9-13 - a orangey brown document distributed to schools a few years ago
The SLP Guidelines for Effective Adolescent Literacy Instruction
Our school diary/calendar dates
This project is informed by a combination of a number of intiatives and resources:
1. It is a professional Development Project that is backed up by research from the BES series for Professional Development as to what constitutes effective PD. (Aaron Wilson was one of the co-authors of this BES) Effective Professional Development BES
2. It is supported by extensive evidence gathering that becomes a way to track progress in the project. The Primary Tool is e-asTTle but it is by no means exclusive to that.
3. It is based on research from a number of educationists specifically with regards to Effective Literacy, but also with regard to effective pedagogy for Maori and Pasifika students. This research is backed up by the application of the theory in practice through the Te Kotahitanga project and Ka HikitiaTe Kotahitanga
4. Supporting documents that have been produced are made available include;
Literacy online
Making language DVD 1 Science and Maths and DVD 2 English and Social Science ( I was fortunate enough to be involved with these projects under the leadership of Cognition)
Literacy learning Progressions ( hot of the press)
English Language Learning Progressions
The New Curriculum
Effective Adolescent Literacy
Day One(John Pipe and Richard Watkinson) Key Presenters Aaron Wilson is the National Coordinator of the Secondary Literacy Project and a researcher with the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. His interests are in the area of cross-curricular literacy teaching in secondary schools and professional development. Aaron was previously Team Leader of Secondary Literacy at Team Solutions and was one of the writers of the ‘Best Evidence Synthesis: Teacher Professional Learning and Development’. Before joining the University of Auckland, Aaron was a Head of English and an Assistant Principal at Aorere College.
Aaron and the Literacy Facilitators from the School Support services are the leaders of this project. Our school is a member of Cohort Two because we are part of the second group of 30 schools to be in the project.
Focus Group composition
Aaron got us to think about the composition of the Focus Group as a way to share the thinking. We have had a number of staff who have shown a keenness to be involved which I am really pleased about.
But it has made me think long and hard about the composition of the group. One suggestion was that there should be 4 groups of 3 classes that are the Literacy classesbut my current thinking is that we should back the keen individual teachers because if we are to build leadership, we can use these teachers to work with the teachers of particular classes anyway. Updated Literacy Learning Progressions These were distributed and we were told that they would arrive in our schools by the end of the week. (and they did!)To an extent they are aspirational but they do give all teacher some indication where our students should be as far as reading and writing is concerned The Inquiry Model The work that we did last year on teaching as inquiry and the material in the new curriculum is totally resonant with this project.
A problem is identified
Teacher practices are reviewed
Readingdoneon availableresearch and experience of others
A plan put in place
Evidence tools established to measurestudent outcomes ( achievement)
Evidence gathered
Plan implemented
Evidence gathered again
Dr Mei Kuin Lai is Associate Director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. She is currently the co-leader on a national project developing evaluative capability in schooling improvement, and leader of the secondary literacy project in the West Coast region. Prior to her current role, Mei was involved in training TEAM Solutions (Auckland School Support Services) in developing effective inquiry cycles to raise student achievement. Mei Lai worked with us extensively when I was at TEAM Solutions. She has maintained some strong views in relation to data that I have always tried to adhere to - namely "What is the purpose of gathering data?" What I did find interesting was that all of the research from Aaron and from Mei used principles that then informed guidelines for practice.
In this project one of the data gathering tools (e-asTTle) is quite unique because it is a diagnostic and formative toolthat is also used summatively.
Mei Laishared her knowledge and expertiseabout the use of data. the questions that she posed were:
What knowledge and skills do our students need?
What knowledge and skills do our teachers need?
How do we deepen professional knowledge and skills?
How do we engage students innew learning experiences?
What has been the impact of our changed actions?
This is remarkably similar to teaching as inquiry!
Aaron Wilson took us through the three key principles ofEffective Adolescent Literacy Instruction
Effective teachers have develped expertise
Effective instructional decisons need to be based on quality evidence and ongoing inquiry
Effective instruction provides a set of optimal conditions for content-area learning. These optimal conditions are described in a set of guidelines
Day Two ( Richard and I were joined by Elliot Lavey on Day Two) The focus of the morning was firstly Pasifika and then Maori
Professor Stuart McNaughton is Professor of Education at the University of Auckland and Director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. His publications include books on reading and instruction and emergent literacy; and papers and presentations on many aspects of teaching, learning and development in family and school settings. His most recent book, Meeting of Minds (2002), develops theory about and extensive examples of effective literacy instruction for culturally and linguistically diverse children. Stuart’s current research is focused on properties of quality teaching of literacy and language in the context of research-based interventions with urban schools. Professor McNaughton made the comment that too often we lump Pasifika together under one term which is far from satisfactory.( I have always argued against the collective term) However when we listen to Russel Bishop it is clear that the critical factors are:
Relationships, explicit teaching of the rules of text, rich texts and knowledge of pedagogy
Professor Russell Bishop is foundation Professor for Maori Education and the Assistant Dean, Maori Education in the School of Education at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He has been Project Director for Te Kotahitanga, a major professional development project focused on improving outcomes for Maori students in New Zealand secondary schools, and is the author of a great many books and articles about Maori education including, Culture Speaks: Cultural Relationships and Classroom Learning(2006) andCulture Counts: Changing Power Relations in Education (2003).He is also a qualified and experienced secondary school teacher.
Russel Bishop is always an engaging speaker. The Te Kotahitanga project is one of the few initiatives to receive ongoing funding from the Ministry. Professor Bishop has come up through research and practical application of TK in schools with an 'Effective Teacher Profile' This involves a teacher being required to do several things which for some are very difficult:
Reject deficit explanations
Understand that the teacher is agentic
Talk with teachers needs to challenge their notions
Build a pedagogy based on relationships that acknowledge where they come from
He mentioned a book 'Ordinary Germans and their part in the Holocaust' which as an historian I found to be fascinating, cause it apparently explores the notion of the sets of ideas that inform a society's views. I will try to get hold of it.
In the afternoon we divided into groups to meet with schools like ours. We had a chat to Rangiora High School ( 1700 students - decile 8) They were Cohort 1 school so could share some of their experiences. Most of the conversation was around the logistics of the testing pre and post
We also split into sessions on FEEDBACK, STUDENT VOICE, OBSERVATIONS and one other that i cannot remember.
So what are some of the outcomes of the two days?
1. The e-asTTle tool will need to be completed as a hard copy test by all Year 9 and year 10. I intend at this stage, with consultation with Pam Drake, to differentiate the tests. There was some concern about the movement of students from class to class at Mid Year but that issue can be managed. Pam's Learning support team will input the data and the contract gives us $$$ to pay them if necessary.
2. The Focus Group is nearly complete. My next job is to check to see which classes are covered by them as a group.
3. I have decided to use my Office as the Literacy Hub. Teachers can come there to do their reading and prepare their resources.
4. The PD, I believe, should put some emphasis on the principles and guidelines and while we will have sessions with the Focus Group they will not meet often as one group because the logistics work better with smaller groups being released at a time. They will need to unpack the e-asTTle tool with a view to sharing it with their department. By having two teachers for each of English Maths, Science and Social Studies we can cover the big four departments and the other four members of the Focus Group can be from Technology, the Arts and Commerce.
5. Crucial that SMT are 100% behind this project. The formula has to include, as well as Teaching as Inquiry, a commitment to Leadership. This means that when you are attending a session you are a teacher who is going to apply the practices in your classroom.I also see the Focus Group as leaders. they might not be HODs or HOFs, but they will be leaders.
The plan
1. Set up and conduct the e-asTTle tests across Y9 and Y10. DRK to help PPE and WKS to construct, administer and mark the tests. These will be done on paper as with V4
2. Identify the Focus Group
3. Bring together the Focus group for a meeting and explain their role in the project
4. Launch the structure at a Staff meeting so that all staff are aware of how the project works. If staff are not involved directly eg languages and PE. I would like them to understand how the principles of Teaching as Inquiry operate so that they can be modelled for their subjects.
4. Train the Focus Group with e-asTTle diagnosis and the key documents and pedagogy. This needs to be done a liitle bit at a time. They then share their knowledge in their departments. The trick here is not to take on too much at a time.
5. Departments need to start building into their units literacy activities not as one offs but as an integrated part of the unit.With our focus on the new curriculum and on KEY COMPETENCIES, it is clear that UNDERSTANDING TEXT AND VISUALS as the U of TRUMP is very prominent in a project such as this but as we look at the the resources and the activities we can see that Literacy involves also: THINKING, MANAGING SELF, RELATING TO OTHERS AND PARTICIPATING
BASED ON RESEARCH, THE FOLOWING ARE THE PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE ADOLESCENT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
LITERACY ONLINE
This site has been set up to support Literacy learning. it includes the Principles and the Guidelines (The Gealis)
I have decided to set up our own wikispace for the SLP. There will be lots of resources on this page but for most staff it will be one step at a time. Click on the link above to go to the SLP page
This page will chronicle our journey with the Secondary Literacy Project. It is an example of Teaching as Inquiry because the data that we gather and the ideas that we share will inform the process.
When we decided to enter this project last year it was partly because as a school we were making progress with Literacy but it was with 'hoop jumping literacy' ie the improvement as measured by Level 1 literacy statistics. We have continued with that because those statistics are a very public marker of progress. We need to keep that focus. But let's not fool ourselves. The real marker for literacy is what happens in the classroom on a day to day basis. I call this functional literacy. The tool that we have been using to measure Year 9 and 10 functional literacy was asTTle. However, like many of our neighbouring schools, we were not getting the shifts in pre and post tests, that we felt we should. The data was telling us that we needed to do more or do something differently. In addition the staff survey that we completed last year indicated that we needed to do something more than were doing. There were schools who were getting shifts. We needed a bit of help.
Help has come in the form of the SLP (The Secondary Literacy Project) Jo Williams, Fiona Gibson and John Pipe attended the first national hui in November 2009. This gave us a feel for the project and gave us an opportunity to think more about the way that we would structure the project within the PD framework of MAGS.
The project involves us creating a group called a Focus Group of 12 teachers who would be given increased time and resources to unpack Literacy across their subject areas. They would be led by a Literacy Co-ordinator but there would also be a representative of the Senior Management Team as part of the Literacy Team. In our model we will have John Pipe as the Literacy Leader and Jo Williams as the SMT member. Richard Watkinson will be the English teacher responsible for literacy and Pam Drake and her team will provide support and knowledge with her team. The Focus Group is in creation now.
We invited Aaron Wilson and Irene Andersen to attend our PD Day and launch the project. This was really planting seeds that would grow over the time that we were gathering evidence to inform the structure and process that the we would follow.
Richard Watkinson, John Pipe and Elliot Lavey attended the February National Hui and started to think and dialogue about the nature of the project with the lead faciltators from School Support Services (m In Auckland, TEAM Solutions)
John's comments from the National hui
Day 1 was spent following a tight agenda but with an opportunity to discuss with others at our table. We sat with the Literacy leaders from Green Bay High School
We were required to bring with us copies of:
This project is informed by a combination of a number of intiatives and resources:
1. It is a professional Development Project that is backed up by research from the BES series for Professional Development as to what constitutes effective PD. (Aaron Wilson was one of the co-authors of this BES) Effective Professional Development BES
2. It is supported by extensive evidence gathering that becomes a way to track progress in the project. The Primary Tool is e-asTTle but it is by no means exclusive to that.
3. It is based on research from a number of educationists specifically with regards to Effective Literacy, but also with regard to effective pedagogy for Maori and Pasifika students. This research is backed up by the application of the theory in practice through the Te Kotahitanga project and Ka Hikitia Te Kotahitanga
4. Supporting documents that have been produced are made available include;
Day One (John Pipe and Richard Watkinson)
Key Presenters
Aaron Wilson is the National Coordinator of the Secondary Literacy Project and a researcher with the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. His interests are in the area of cross-curricular literacy teaching in secondary schools and professional development. Aaron was previously Team Leader of Secondary Literacy at Team Solutions and was one of the writers of the ‘Best Evidence Synthesis: Teacher Professional Learning and Development’. Before joining the University of Auckland, Aaron was a Head of English and an Assistant Principal at Aorere College.
Aaron and the Literacy Facilitators from the School Support services are the leaders of this project. Our school is a member of Cohort Two because we are part of the second group of 30 schools to be in the project.
Focus Group composition
Aaron got us to think about the composition of the Focus Group as a way to share the thinking. We have had a number of staff who have shown a keenness to be involved which I am really pleased about.
But it has made me think long and hard about the composition of the group. One suggestion was that there should be 4 groups of 3 classes that are the Literacy classes but my current thinking is that we should back the keen individual teachers because if we are to build leadership, we can use these teachers to work with the teachers of particular classes anyway.
Updated Literacy Learning Progressions
These were distributed and we were told that they would arrive in our schools by the end of the week. (and they did!) To an extent they are aspirational but they do give all teacher some indication where our students should be as far as reading and writing is concerned
The Inquiry Model
The work that we did last year on teaching as inquiry and the material in the new curriculum is totally resonant with this project.
Dr Mei Kuin Lai is Associate Director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. She is currently the co-leader on a national project developing evaluative capability in schooling improvement, and leader of the secondary literacy project in the West Coast region. Prior to her current role, Mei was involved in training TEAM Solutions (Auckland School Support Services) in developing effective inquiry cycles to raise student achievement.
Mei Lai worked with us extensively when I was at TEAM Solutions. She has maintained some strong views in relation to data that I have always tried to adhere to - namely "What is the purpose of gathering data?" What I did find interesting was that all of the research from Aaron and from Mei used principles that then informed guidelines for practice.
In this project one of the data gathering tools (e-asTTle) is quite unique because it is a diagnostic and formative tool that is also used summatively.
Mei Lai shared her knowledge and expertise about the use of data. the questions that she posed were:
This is remarkably similar to teaching as inquiry!
Aaron Wilson took us through the three key principles of Effective Adolescent Literacy Instruction
Day Two ( Richard and I were joined by Elliot Lavey on Day Two)
The focus of the morning was firstly Pasifika and then Maori
Professor Stuart McNaughton is Professor of Education at the University of Auckland and Director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. His publications include books on reading and instruction and emergent literacy; and papers and presentations on many aspects of teaching, learning and development in family and school settings. His most recent book, Meeting of Minds (2002), develops theory about and extensive examples of effective literacy instruction for culturally and linguistically diverse children. Stuart’s current research is focused on properties of quality teaching of literacy and language in the context of research-based interventions with urban schools.
Professor McNaughton made the comment that too often we lump Pasifika together under one term which is far from satisfactory. ( I have always argued against the collective term) However when we listen to Russel Bishop it is clear that the critical factors are:
Relationships, explicit teaching of the rules of text, rich texts and knowledge of pedagogy
Professor Russell Bishop is foundation Professor for Maori Education and the Assistant Dean, Maori Education in the School of Education at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He has been Project Director for Te Kotahitanga, a major professional development project focused on improving outcomes for Maori students in New Zealand secondary schools, and is the author of a great many books and articles about Maori education including, Culture Speaks: Cultural Relationships and Classroom Learning (2006) and Culture Counts: Changing Power Relations in Education (2003). He is also a qualified and experienced secondary school teacher.
Russel Bishop is always an engaging speaker. The Te Kotahitanga project is one of the few initiatives to receive ongoing funding from the Ministry. Professor Bishop has come up through research and practical application of TK in schools with an 'Effective Teacher Profile' This involves a teacher being required to do several things which for some are very difficult:
- Reject deficit explanations
- Understand that the teacher is agentic
- Talk with teachers needs to challenge their notions
- Build a pedagogy based on relationships that acknowledge where they come from
He mentioned a book 'Ordinary Germans and their part in the Holocaust' which as an historian I found to be fascinating, cause it apparently explores the notion of the sets of ideas that inform a society's views. I will try to get hold of it.In the afternoon we divided into groups to meet with schools like ours. We had a chat to Rangiora High School ( 1700 students - decile 8) They were Cohort 1 school so could share some of their experiences. Most of the conversation was around the logistics of the testing pre and post
We also split into sessions on FEEDBACK, STUDENT VOICE, OBSERVATIONS and one other that i cannot remember.
So what are some of the outcomes of the two days?
1. The e-asTTle tool will need to be completed as a hard copy test by all Year 9 and year 10. I intend at this stage, with consultation with Pam Drake, to differentiate the tests. There was some concern about the movement of students from class to class at Mid Year but that issue can be managed. Pam's Learning support team will input the data and the contract gives us $$$ to pay them if necessary.
2. The Focus Group is nearly complete. My next job is to check to see which classes are covered by them as a group.
3. I have decided to use my Office as the Literacy Hub. Teachers can come there to do their reading and prepare their resources.
4. The PD, I believe, should put some emphasis on the principles and guidelines and while we will have sessions with the Focus Group they will not meet often as one group because the logistics work better with smaller groups being released at a time. They will need to unpack the e-asTTle tool with a view to sharing it with their department. By having two teachers for each of English Maths, Science and Social Studies we can cover the big four departments and the other four members of the Focus Group can be from Technology, the Arts and Commerce.
5. Crucial that SMT are 100% behind this project. The formula has to include, as well as Teaching as Inquiry, a commitment to Leadership. This means that when you are attending a session you are a teacher who is going to apply the practices in your classroom. I also see the Focus Group as leaders. they might not be HODs or HOFs, but they will be leaders.
The plan
1. Set up and conduct the e-asTTle tests across Y9 and Y10. DRK to help PPE and WKS to construct, administer and mark the tests. These will be done on paper as with V4
2. Identify the Focus Group
3. Bring together the Focus group for a meeting and explain their role in the project
4. Launch the structure at a Staff meeting so that all staff are aware of how the project works. If staff are not involved directly eg languages and PE. I would like them to understand how the principles of Teaching as Inquiry operate so that they can be modelled for their subjects.
4. Train the Focus Group with e-asTTle diagnosis and the key documents and pedagogy. This needs to be done a liitle bit at a time. They then share their knowledge in their departments. The trick here is not to take on too much at a time.
5. Departments need to start building into their units literacy activities not as one offs but as an integrated part of the unit.With our focus on the new curriculum and on KEY COMPETENCIES, it is clear that
UNDERSTANDING TEXT AND VISUALS as the U of TRUMP is very prominent in a project such as this but as we look at the the resources and the activities we can see that Literacy involves also:
THINKING, MANAGING SELF, RELATING TO OTHERS AND PARTICIPATING
BASED ON RESEARCH, THE FOLOWING ARE THE PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE ADOLESCENT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
LITERACY ONLINE
This site has been set up to support Literacy learning. it includes the Principles and the Guidelines (The Gealis)